Update

Hello,
If you have been following, you will know that last March I left New Zealand. I am now happily living and working in New York. Being a wimp when it comes to the weather, this winter I have been pouring my energies into more sedentary pursuits. You can read about them here.


Check back in the summer!

Ending a bike

As some of you are aware, I never intended to spend two years living in New Zealand. Yet a carefree ‘why not ?’ easily turned one month into six months. And by the time I realized why not I was in over my head and it only made sense to stay just a little longer, and then a little longer still.

I initially figured that I could temporarily make do with a clumsy, beater-bike that bore the optimistic label ‘Black Thunder’ on the crossbar. I named her Trisha and got used to her, but she was never any match for the bike I’d left at home. Since ‘I wasn’t going to be in Wellington that much longer’ it never made sense to upgrade. She did the job as I heffed her up and down Wellington for longer than I had planned.

As I was finally leaving New Zealand, I had to try and figure out what to do with her. It would be difficult to sell her.  She had some problems. The back wheel was a bit warped from the time I got caught in a sewer grate. The impractical front suspension was rusted. But she was still rideable. Or she was until my the last weekend. I left her locked up on Willis St. one night that I was too tired to ride up home and she had a particularly violent encounter with what I can only imagine to be a entire rugby team with cricket bats. The details of the incident will remain unknown however the altercation left her immobile.

So what could I do with her now that I was actually leaving town? My plan was to unlock her and leave her at the bike rack next to the abandoned pair of ice skates (see photo). I happily imagined her adopted by someone who needed a bike or an ambitious type wanting to try their hand at bike repair. My daydreams ground to a halt when my flatmates said they wanted her. I let them have her but was secretly disappointed knowing how the story ends.

Talking to Strangers

I talk to myself while I’m cycling. Judging by the way my aunts always laughed at grandma, talking to yourself is probably something that I should try and hide. But I don’t, and neither do a lot of other Wellingtonians. Cycle-soliloquists are especially visible in Wellington due to the landscape. The slow hike up the steep hills expose these monologues. The daunting topography, has another side effect too, I sometime just park the bike and walk. And why not? everyone is going to hear me muttering anyway.  Walking also presents the opportunity to talk to others in ways that cycling around in traffic doesn’t. Recently, I had this conversation that I wouldn’t have had on a bike. 

Me: Hey Emily! (I wave to my friend across the street)
Emily: Oh, Hi!
(as I cross the street to chat with Emily I realize it’s not her)
Emily look alike: I didn’t know you live around here? Good to see you!
Me: yeah, right up the road, how are you? (I make snap decision to continue the charade and not to tell her we’ve never met)
Woman I’ve never met before:  I’m good. Yeah, just over there.
Me: great to see you but I’ve got to run (I want to go before she realizes we are strangers and things get awkward)
Complete stranger: sure, good to see you too!
Me: take care.

It was almost like talking to myself.

Head case

 Lately, the title of this blog has been a bit of a tease. I know you click in anticipation of witty comments about flat tires and roadkill, investigative reporting on the latest gears and scandalous sitings of men in white bike shorts. At last, I will quench your thirst for cyclecommentary with an insight into the hottest trend in Australian helmet decorating, zipties.

That's right! Zipties, those snappy strips of plastic, the ones that are seem like they are going to be really useful when you buy the pack of 100. Then you use one once and the rest haunt you by finding their way into the bottom of every bag and drawer you own. Australian cyclists on the other hand, have found a way to put them to good (?) use.
I couldn’t manage to get a photo so here is an artistic rendering.

A wide range of Australian cyclists sport these ornamental helmets; young, old, men, women, racing bikes, mountain bikes and commuters. They attach them with the spare trimable bit sticking up like a spike (see sketch above). Some helmets have as few as five while others have at least twenty-five. Zipties may be a variety of colors. I saw black, grey, blue, and white.

In my 10 days of keen observation, I have concluded that these plastic antennae are attached for decorative purposes only. This conclusion is scientifically supported by the failure of other hypotheses. Here is a list of my other hypotheses and reasons why they failed:

1) lightning rods   -   zipties are made of plastic
2) radio    -    again, plastic lacks receptive properties
3) signal of gang affiliation  -   wide range of demographics sporting zipties -  zipties are not very intimidating
4) halloween -  not a popular holiday in Australia -  would be crap costume
5) deter birds from building nests- there is an abundance of superior nest
building sites  - birds generally like stationary nests.
6) helmet anti-theft device- how would a flexible strip of plastic deter greedy helmet burglars?

The only question that remains is, will this aussie fad catch on in other places? The answer is, probably. When it does, just remember that you heard about it here first, on the hippest blog that is almost about cycling.

The rest of the world

I am doing some work with one of my professors. We are looking at incorporating intercultural understanding into foreign language learning. As a result, I have been thinking about the cultural assumptions that I had of the rest of the world when I was growing up. When I was very young my parents had Greek friends. I was jealous of their frilly toilet seat covers and it made me feet special to know them and the fancy names for the casseroles they made. For me, culture was delicious food. But, things got more complicated in grade school. There was one hispanic girl in our class. She was nice and also a Jehova’s witness. This distinction between ethnicity and religion was lost on the 9 year old me. I thought all hispanics had to leave the classroom whenever someone brought cupcakes for their birthday. I middle school I quickly realized this was not the case.

However, I think my first real insight into foreign culture was the winter olympics in Albertville, France. It was 1992 and my parents had just ended our family's tv abstinence program and I stayed up late and watched the opening ceremonies on a 12 inch screen in the corner of our living room. I was in awe of the bizarre costumes, bungy acrobats and dichordant melodies. Anyone who dared be that unconventional would be ridiculed out of my midsized American city. Shortly thereafter I started wearing birkenstocks, because European equalled cool, and it was all downhill from there. Four years later, to the dismay of my teachers who warned that I was throwing away my future, I went to Spain as an exchange student. Over the past 14 years I have only managed to live in the US for whopping 3.5 years. I have often talked of moving back, and am ever curious about how that might go.

Writing up a storm

Academic writing is a calculated yet magical process. Yesterday one of my classmates asked me about my writing process and I couldn’t really articulate it. I do all the typical things; make notes, outline. Then I cut and paste the notes into the outline and try to shape paragraphs. And somewhere along the line a synthesis occurs. Ideas start to bloom and arguments wind through the string of references, ‘howevers’ and ‘moreovers’.

Lately, after the crafty cohesion of ideas occur, I like to deconstruct the whole thing into a word cloud. Its punishment really to see the carefully constructed style evaporate as the most frequent words are stacked against each other in the color scheme of my choice. I always wonder if someone could just guess what I was after just by looking at the word cloud? Can you? Here is the latest one.

Time to think

Brain space is in demand these days as the trimester comes to a close this month. I've been thinking about posting something, but haven't been able to think of what. The only news here is that winter has come and my feet are cold. Oh the laundry is done. I've got to hang it up before I run off to the library.